Reinforced Cement Concrete : Advantages of RCC

RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete)

RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) is the combination of using steel and concrete instead of using only concrete to offset some limitations. Concrete is weak in tensile stress with compared to its compressive stress. To offset this limitation, steel reinforcement is used in the concrete at the place where the section is subjected to tensile stress. Steel is very strong in tensile stress. The reinforcement is usually round in shape with approximate surface deformation is placed in the form in advance of the concrete. When the reinforcement is surrounded by the hardened concrete mass, it form an integral part of the member. The resultant combination of two materials are known as reinforced concrete. In this case the cross-sectional area of the beam or other flexural member is greatly reduced.

Advantages of RCC

Nowadays, RCC is used in most of the structures. The advantages of RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) are as following.

1. Reinforced Cement Concrete has good compressive stress (because of concrete).
2. RCC also has high tensile stress (because of steel).
3. It has good resistance to damage by fire and weathering (because of concrete).
4. RCC protects steel bars from buckling and twisting at the high temperature.
5. RCC prevents steel from rusting.
6. Reinforced Concrete is durable.
7. The monolithic character of reinforced concrete gives it more rigidity.
8. Maintenance cost of RCC is practically nil.

It is possible to produce steel whose yield strength is 3 to 4 time more that of ordinary reinforced steel and to produce concrete 4 to 5 time more stronger in compression than the ordinary concrete. This may high strength material offer many advantages including smaller member cross-sections, reduce dead load and longer spans. But the high stress result in high strain and consequently large deflection of such member will occur under ordinary loading conditions. Also high strength reinforcing steel would include large crack in the concrete which reduce the durability of the structure. The commonly used yield strength of high strength reinforcing steel is 60 ksi.